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iRiver Story

About the author

A native of rural Benton County, Minnesota, T.J. Stiles studied history at Carleton College and Columbia University, where he received two graduate degrees. His writings about American history include articles in Smithsonian, essays in the Los Angeles Times and the Denver Post, and a five-volume series of primary-source anthologies. He lives in New York. For more information on T. J. Stiles and Jesse James see www.tjstiles.com.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

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In this brilliant biography T. J. Stiles offers a new understanding of the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Although he has often been portrayed as a Robin Hood of the old west, in this ground-breaking work Stiles places James within the context of the bloody conflicts of the Civil War to reveal a much more complicated and significant figure.

Raised in a fiercely pro-slavery household in bitterly divided Misssouri, at age sixteen James became a bushwhacker, one of the savage Confederate guerrillas that terrorized the border states. After the end of the war, James continued his campaign of robbery and murder into the brutal era of reconstruction, when his reckless daring, his partisan pronouncements, and his alliance with the sympathetic editor John Newman Edwards placed him squarely at the forefront of the former Confederates’ bid to recapture political power. With meticulous research and vivid accounts of the dramatic adventures of the famous gunman, T. J. Stiles shows how he resembles not the apolitical hero of legend, but rather a figure ready to use violence to command attention for a political cause—in many ways, a forerunner of the modern terrorist.

"In this excellent account, T.J. Stiles shows James to be a southerner, not a westerner; a Confederate, not a cowboy. . . . [He] masterfully strips James bare." —The Economist

“Elegantly rendered and compelling.” —Jay Winik, Washington Post Book World

"Stiles has combed a wealth of contemporary sources and imbues this story with the drama it deserves.” —Eric Foner, Los Angeles Times

“[A] bold, myth-bashing account of the brutal life and times of the outlaw-icon.” —Boston Globe

"Carries the reader scrupulously through James’s violent, violent life. . . . When Stiles, in his subtitle, calls Jesse James the ‘last rebel fo the Civil War; he correctly definies the theme that ruled Jesse’s life." —Larry McMurtry, The New Republic

“A fascinating challnge to old legends.” —The Dallas Morning News

“A dazzling work of American history. . . . James emerges, stripped of his Robin Hood folk mythology, as a more complex and pivotal figure than earlier histories have allowed.” —Sunday Times [London]

“Arresting and powerful.” —The Richmond-Times Dispatch

"This gripping biography of one of the most famous American outlaws clarifies the development of modern violence and proves that the simplistic Jesse James of western movies fall far short of the historical mark." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Perhaps the finest book ever written about this American legend.” —Salon.com

“The book is quite simply outstanding. . . . [Stiles is] a writer whose allegiance is not with the easy and obvious but with the subtle and definiantly humane.” —Guardian

"As gracefully written as a novel, and convincingly argued throughout, this is biography at its finest." —Bookpage

"Stiles spent four years examining James’s deadliest weapon: his politics. . . . James emerges as no mere robber, but as a proslavery 'terrorist' who remains wildly misunderstood." —Time Out

“In hard-eyed, exhilaratingly physcial language . . . T. J. Stiles takes us beyond the usual interpretation of the outlaw’s notorious life and into a far more challenging understanding of the man.” —The Bloomsbury Review